22 posts categorized "Community"

July 11, 2014

Now through September 15, 2014, the Books about Town public art exhibit takes place all over London.

There are 50 unique BookBenches to locate, like the Shakespeare and Paddington Bear ones featured in this post—all of which will be auctioned at the exhibit's end in order to raise money for literacy initiatives in the UK through the National Literacy Trust. (The Books about Town site features some maps and quizzes to get your started on the hunt.)

Wild in Art, who is partnering with National Literacy Trust to put this on, has art education initiatives that engage students on issues both in their immediate and worldwide communities. UK artists donated their time and talents to create these benches; check out the Instagram account to see how they look out and about.

For 2012, the NWP’s focus is on what
people write. (Last year’s campaign highlighted why people write.) To participate this year, post your writing online and then share it via social media. From the NWP site:

When tweeting
out links to your compositions, include the hashtag #whatiwrite. If you have space, consider including
the hashtags #nwp and #dayonwriting. Also include the #whatiwrite hashtag on Google+ and Instagram posts, and as a tag for
your own blog or NWP Connect posts.

By using hashtags, anyone can find and
then read or join the conversation. As the use of these hashtags increase, the topic trends on Twitter and more people read about it and can join. A community of self-identified writers grows from the communication.

Why join this community? The National Writing Project believes that "...writing, in its many
forms, is the signature means of communication in the 21st century." To write well in the many online forms available today means to be heard and acknowledged. Posting writing online and getting feedback from the community helps writers hone their craft, spark new ideas, and create connections with other writers. All of this leads to more writing, and the more anyone writes, the better at it he or she will become.

Having the power to express oneself well through writing, in any community, has become a vital life skill in this digital and social-media-driven age.

August 05, 2012

In 2010, Todd Bol and Rick Brooks joined forces to share their passion for literacy in a community-based way. They created Little Free Library, which encourages people to create spaces, often on their front lawns, where they can donate and borrow books. (See above picture as an example.)

Others saw the benefits of having such a simple and accessible book exchange on their street and created their own. This growing movement is bringing free books to neighborhoods worldwide.

Potential positives I see:

Folks have a place to put books they don’t want anymore and know they will be well used.

Lenders and borrowers can see what their neighborhood likes to read. (Could book-group discussions come out of this?)

A Little Free Library Cafe right next to it! (OK, an honor-system, weather-proof espresso machine may be too much to ask. Would a nearby for-pay lemonade stand do?)

Do you have one in your neighborhood? If not, are you considering starting one? If you don’t have a front lawn, like many in cities or any apartment dweller, can you think of another fitting spot?

-To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide. -To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity, and wisdom across generations.-To build more than 2,510 libraries around the world - more than Andrew Carnegie!

October 16, 2011

In many urban neighborhoods in the United States, supermarket shortages make it difficult for residents of these areas to buy affordable, healthy food. This lack can contribute to a host of health problems, including obesity and diabetes, as people tend to depend on fast food outlets, corner convenience stores, and bodegas for a majority of their meals. If these local venues do sell fresh produce, it's often at a premium, keeping it out of reach of those without extra funds to splurge.

New York City is a metropolis known for its thousands of gourmet restaurants and eclectic, high-end markets. For many local residents, however, eating a meal from these establishments may well be a mirage. Areas called "food deserts" dot all five boroughs, with areas of highest poverty in the Bronx having the fewest number of grocery stores per resident city-wide. To get fairly priced, high-quality food, people must often travel great distances. In NYC, this can easily entail navigating multiple subways and bus lines and walking many blocks while carrying perishables and heavy liquids. (Imagine a grocery store trip that takes hours and is both physically and mentally exhausting.)

To bring more food-access parity to the Big Apple, local groups and city politicians are looking at the complex relationship between factors which keeps grocery stores out of so many's reach. This 2005 Gotham Gazette story explains this situation and possible solutions well. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger website is an online source representing more than “1,200 food programs” which help an estimated 1.4 million hungry New Yorkers. While the issue is complex, many are focusing their attention on it. Awareness about this aspect of hunger seems to be spreading.

Lack of food access is not just a New York City issue. If you look closely enough at any of the U.S.'s urban and rural areas — the places most difficult for grocery stores to exist, for a variety of reasons — you will find food deserts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service has put its “Food Desert Locator” online. It allows viewers to “get a spatial overview of low-income neighborhoods with high concentrations of people who are far from a grocery store” based on U.S. census data.

Today is Blog Action Day, and this year's focus is on food. As a result of participating, I have not only learned more about food deserts, but also found Civil Eats, a well-written blog, with over 100 contributors, about food issues; The Food Trust, a community-based organization in Philadelphia which promotes farmers' markets throughout the city (and much more); and Just Food, another NYC-based food justice initiative which pairs area farmers and their produce to those who most need them.

Thanks to all at BAD2011 who have again brought worldwide attention, through organizing a network of bloggers, to an issue affecting us all.

January 21, 2010

While I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy writing and reading (some online, most brick-and-mortar). One example: I'm closely following news about Twitter and mobile phones because I think they have incredibly potential for communication and creativity.

To keep track of this information for myself and to share with anyone else who is interested, I have started a Twitter articles page. It features links to noteworthy Twitter articles. From the page's intro:

Twitter, the free microblogging service started in 2006,
has been used to influence elections in the United States and Iran,
break news about natural disasters and political happenings, and gather
donations to assist Haitians after the devastating January 2010
earthquake.

While critics
deride Twitter, I continually find merit in it. It is powerful in a
ground-level way, giving private citizens, companies, organizations and
thought leaders (potentially influential) voice on any subject
(significant and trivial) they desire. I look forward to seeing how it
evolves.

So, will Twitter
disappear, as other social networks have? In my opinion, no. It
has substantial market share, and while anyone can create their own
140-character microblogging network, terms like "tweet", "tweeting",
"followers", "Twitterville", etc. will most likely be synonymous for describing microblogging — referencing the only substantial,
well-populated microblogging community existing today.

I
read anything I can find about Twitter. Below is my list of noteworthy
Twitter articles, including news on new developments, trends and uses
of Twitter. It has been sifted to remove much of the fluff: while it's
a noteworthy trend that many celebrities have found a comfortable,
digital way to constantly communicate with tweet-reading fans, I
won't report on it — they are easy enough to find on their own, and are
often only "ego-casting" or "life-casting" (brief missives on what they
ate for breakfast, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with,
etc.).

I'll add to this as I find more articles. Questions and comments are always welcome.

Regarding life-casting, I found a gem: the Museum of Modern Celebrity Tweets, which shows celebrity life-casting in a humorous light. Above is an illustration of a recent tweet by musician Nick Jonas. Odessa Begay is its illustrator and, I suppose, head curator. Found via Holy Kaw! at Alltop

February 05, 2009

This week, I am co-hosting an education news hunt over at NewsTrust, a site which rates quality journalism. Through February 8th, readers and reviewers at NewsTrust will submit as many articles on education as they can find for the entire community to review and comment on.

Question: So, how could a hunt for news actually improve education?

Answer: Increase knowledge on a topic = increased power to affect change.

Throughout the news hunt week, people who participate read many articles and greatly expand their knowledge about education. By submitting and reviewing the articles, reviewers become more discerning about which articles are best, and which information is most relevant. Participants read others' reviews, also, taking in other community member observations and opinions, adding another dimension to their own understanding of the topic.

By the end of the week, reviewers have immersed themselves in a week-long, community-led exploration into the current state of education worldwide. Because so many people participate, the collective mind critiquing these articles covers vast ground, learns more and becomes "smarter" about the topic; thus, so do participants.

If we become more knowledgeable about the complex issues behind education, we become empowered to help our local schools. Fortified with newly found facts and viewpoints on education, news hunt participants could participate more in their local communities. NewsTrust provides a continually refreshed resource of the best, most current education articles as a reference.

The state of education affects all members of society. With a landmark education stimulus package in the U.S. on the cusp of being implemented, now is an exciting time to focus on crucial issues which certainly will determine the quality of our future.

Also, on the right-hand side of this blog, I feature a NewsTrust widget. If you're a "news hound" (Thanks, Dale!) who would like to feature links to quality journalism on your blog, click here to get this feature.

2. "The
Buzzwords of 2008" is full of overused, wordy gems. On this New York Times' list, you'll find digital cliff, staycation, and Phelpsian, among many others. The article is co-written by Grant Barrett, "a lexicographer
specializing in slang and new words, ... co-host of the public
radio program 'A Way With Words' and head of the New Words Committee of
the American Dialect Society." Accompanying illustrations by Jessica Hische are witty and original.

For $30.00, we are putting together a Mystery Box
of three business books. In this box you are guaranteed one title that
either won, or made the shortlist for, the best book of 2008 in its
category, along with 2 other titles from last year that were submitted
for the awards. As a bonus, we will include a copy of this year's In The Books, our annual review of business books. 100% of the purchase will go directly to Room to Read, and we'll cover the shipping on all orders.

Room to Read promotes increased literacy in the developing world by establishing libraries, computer labs and even schools in communities with few educational resources. It is a powerful organization which makes real and lasting positive impact. If you're not familiar with the group, I suggest clicking through and looking at what they do; it is inspiring.

November 07, 2008

As the world continues to revel in the most hopeful and historic election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, other positive developments are shining through. One I'd like to note, as a follow-up to my Do you know how to vote? post, is this: in this 2008 election, the U.S. has had its highest voter turnout ever in the last 48 years.

More than 148 million voters cast their ballots, which equals to 64.1% of the voting-age electorate.

Take a look at this chart, National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections, which features statistics from 1960. (For presidential election years, the stats are in boldface. Mid-term elections, nationally held to elect Congress members and for state/local governments, are in plain type.) So inspiring! Our voting electorate has been completely re-energized across age, race, and economic groups; almost 26 million more voters turned out in 2008 than they did in 2004.

After finding and being moved by these significant voting stats, I stumbled across the above photo on Flickr and had to feature it. Before I began writing this post, I read an article in The Washington Post titled "U.S. Hailed Again as Country of Dreams", and this photo expresses much of the gratitude many worldwide are feeling based on Obama's win.

So, I must say this again: thank you for voting! It has made all the difference in the world.

Hello and welcome!

My name is Kristin Gorski. I recently earned my doctorate (EdD) in instructional technology and media. My research focuses on technology and literacies, writing in digital spaces, and how media literacy may support academic literacy (among other incredibly interesting topics). On occasion, I’m also a freelance writer and editor. “Write now is good.” is my personal blog about writing, creativity and inspiration (with healthy doses of technology in relevant places). I started it in blogging's heyday (2006) and still post to it, time permitting. If you'd like to collaborate on a project, have writing/technology/creativity info to share, or want to say, "Hi," contact me at kgwritenow (at) yahoo dot com.
To read more about me, click on the "ABOUT" link below.